Thank you, Tom Quinlan. My thanks to the Oakland Chamber of
Commerce, to the Commonwealth Club, and to everyone in the East Bay
area who has made this day possible.

We are the greatest industrial nation in the world.
But our real strength does not lie in
our factories or our technology. Our ultimate strength is in our
people.

What impacts the lives of our people most? It may
be your child's teacher that gives you new hope that he really is
going to learn to read, maybe your boss and your fellow workers and
how your boss treats you and the care that she or he gives to the
working environment in which you spend most of your day. It may be
the policeman, who by tone of voice and manner and firmness conveys
trust but a willingness to enforce the law. It may be a job or lack
of a job. It may be the doctor, the rabbi, the priest. It may be a
stranger who feels alienated or a stranger that comes together with
you. It may be your neighbor or your grocer. But it is one word,
"community," a word that means so much to so many people.

YOUNG PEOPLE: Janet Reno, we're the young people of Oakland, and
we're here today to
support Mumia Abu-Jamal, an African-American political prisoner on
death row in Pennsylvania. And we're here in a peaceful manner. And
we're here representing the people of Oakland, people of color on the
outside right now. And Oakland supports Mumia.

GENERAL RENO: May I suggest this. Let me finish talking, and then
let me spend some time with you, get all the details, and follow up.
Do you have enough time? I won't take more than about 25 minutes.

YOUNG PEOPLE: Thank you. We want to hear what you have to say. But
we also want everyone else who's concerned about community safety to
hear what we have to say. So I just want to make a brief statement.

GENERAL RENO: Okay. That will be fine. Go right ahead.

YOUNG PEOPLE: Thank you. We're here today to talk about real
community safety, and no community is safe as long as police
corruption goes unchecked. We want to
ask -- we want to ask Janet Reno to launch an investigation into the
Philadelphia Police Department's handling of the case of Mumia
Abu-Jamal. We believe that there was corruption, and we want a --
want that investigated. We want -- we want you to take a stand for
real community safety along with the investigation.

We have a pledge here, a pledge for real community
safety that we want Janet Reno to
sign. And it's a pledge that to have real community safety is
launching an investigation into the
Philadelphia Police Department, which has already been done and came
up with a lot of corruptions of
what happened there. And we need another one. And so, we want you,
Janet Reno, to sign this pledge for real community safety for our
community, low-income communities, communities of color, for Mumia
Abu-Jamal. For Mumia.

GENERAL RENO: Thank you very much. I'll be happy to talk with you
right after I finish.

YOUNG PEOPLE: Will you sign the pledge?

GENERAL RENO: I don't know. I haven't read it.

(Applause.)

The business community, it is people speaking out.
It is people with strong feelings.
It is people coming together to resolve the issues that divide us.
Six-and-a-half years ago, I left
Miami, a rambunctious young city that had its problems and a city
that I loved. I worried, when I
came to Washington, that I would lose my sense of community. But I
have found that not to be the
case. I have just gained communities.

This is about my third visit to Oakland and, to the
East Bay area, my fifth. And
each time I come, I gain a strength. Mr. Quinlan asked me if these
things got old hat. They don't
get old hat when you go to Highland Hospital, listen to young
residents, trauma surgeons and people who
care, coming together to figure out what they do to make sure that
there are no more young people in
those hospital beds who are the victims of violence.

(Applause.)

It's not old hat when you go to Minneapolis five
years ago and see what the situation was and come back last spring and
see what it is now. It's not old hat to go to Boston and
hear how they have reduced the number of youth homicides over a two-
or three-year period by the
community coming together. It gives me faith and hope and a
conviction that America, as it comes
together, can solve its problems with respect to crime, with respect
toward the economy, with respect
to diversity, and with respect to the quality of living.

What makes a community? What makes a community
strong? What makes it safe? What makes it prosperous? What brings
it together? I think the first has already been alluded to. A
community that is strong is a community that has come together, where
everyone feels that they have a role in addressing the problems that
plague the community. A police officer can't do it alone. Chief Word
would tell you that his police department can't, by itself, deal with
the problem of crime in Oakland. But a police department that has
strong business community support can be a much stronger force.

The educators here will tell you that they can't
educate by themselves. They need the police working with them in
sensitive, thoughtful ways. But they also need the business community
in terms of developing school-to-work programs, in terms of developing
programs that give young people
mentoring and tutoring opportunities that can open the doors to a
future that is constructive and
positive.

To doctors, teachers, parks and recreation
specialists, community activists, all of
us must come together if we're to make a difference. But I will tell
you that the glue, the strength I
see in communities comes for certain when the business community is
involved in ever so many ways.

The second factor, the second ingredient of a strong
community is that people must
come first -- all the people, not just some of the people.

(Applause.)

We talk in terms of programs. But today, I look down
on two -- I didn't look down on
them figuratively. I was standing up and they were in bed. But I
talked with two young men who had
been the victims of violence. These were human beings who had been
the subject of violence that did
not have to occur. It's not a program that will help them. It was
those residents, those physicians
who had saved their lives. It was social workers, educators,
street people, and others who were doing
so much to make a difference in the -- their lives and the lives of
others, putting people first,
putting all people first, children, the disadvantaged, minorities,
making everyone realize
that this country is a land of equal opportunity, and if we leave
some people back, we are weaker and
the lesser for it all.

(Applause.)

Communities must invest in people and invest wisely.
They must begin early and build
foundations. The child development experts have consistently told
me that the first three years of
life are the most important. That's when the child learns the
concept of reward and punishment and
develops a conscience. 50 percent of all learned human response is
learned in the first year of life.

If a child grows up not to know what punishment means, if a child
does not have a conscience, what good are all the prisons going to be
15 years from now unless we make an investment in children now?

What good --

(Applause.)

What good are all the great universities going to be
in terms of preparing our
whole population to live and work in the 21st century if we don't
provide that child a foundation
in the first years of life that is so critically important? Look
at how we will waste our money if
we pay for remedial programs in community colleges because we fail
to invest up front in sound
instead of childcare. We can make so much of a difference.

(Applause.)

Something is wrong with the nation that pays its
football players in the six-digit
figures and pays its school teachers what we pay them --

(Applause.)

The business community can be a tremendous ally, a
tremendous ally of law
enforcement and of education. But it's not just there. The
45-year-old who's out of a job because he -- his skill has become
obsolete, we've got to develop consistent retraining programs that he
knows
or she knows will be available to them, much as K through 12 is
available, so that people can know
that there is a long and evolving opportunity in life.

But as we give people opportunity, we must hold them
accountable. We too often seek to
hold people accountable who don't have the tools or the wherewithal
at age 12 or 13 or 14 to be
accountable. Let's give them the tools. Let's let them know that
there's no excuse for putting a gun
up beside somebody's head and threatening them, that there are going
to be fair, firm consequences that
fit the crime. But let us make sure that we balance opportunity and
the tools to live a strong and
positive life with accountability.

What is the Federal role in this? I never liked the
Feds coming to town in Miami and
telling us what to do or telling us we want this and giving nothing
in return. And so I resolved when I
came to Washington to do everything I could to form a partnership
with communities across America. And in that effort, we have funded
and encouraged new community strategies, community policing, crime
prevention programs, community courts. I've encouraged Federal
prosecutors and investigators to
work closely with their local counterparts and to reach out through --
across disciplines, to work
with educators, the faith community, and other local leaders. The
administration in Congress have taken steps to reduce violent crime,
passing the Brady Act and the Assault Weapons Ban, and we've mounted
an unprecedented effort to get illegal guns off the streets. We've
expanded the nation's drug court program and supported states in the
fight again domestic violence.

But throughout the last six years, I've seen over and
over and over again that where
the difference is made is in community and in the people who make up
that community and in the
businesses that support progressive efforts within the community.
Communities across America have
learned that when you commit ingenuity, management skills,
expertise, you can make a difference.

Communities across America have learned that when you come together,
when you use your best knowledge to invest in people, there is a
resolve. And what is the resolve? Violent crime has dropped seven
years in a row to its lowest level in three decades.

Murders have fallen by more than 20 percent in larger cities and
suburban communities. The juvenile crime rate is down for the fourth
year in a row.

Now, as a former state prosecutor, I know it can go
back up like that. And it goes back up too often because people
become complacent and they say we solved the crime problem; now, let's
think about something else. Or they think it's easier to go play golf
on a Sunday morning than it is to work with kids. We cannot become
complacent. So there is still too much violence in this land.

We are still one of the most violent nations in the
world. But, ladies and gentlemen,
this does not have to be. Let me give you anexample. In the five years from 1992 through 1996, the City of
Chicago recorded 3,063 gun homicides, 3,063. In the same period,
Toronto, across the border, recorded 100 gun homicides -- two cities
of similar size. Violence as we know it in America does not have to
be.

We have a golden opportunity right now. By virtually
any measure, Americans are experiencing unprecedented economic
prosperity. Now is the time to act. We can renew our efforts,
strengthen our partnerships, use common sense in analyzing crime
problems and designing strategies to
solve them, and watch crime continue to go down.

Today, I come before you with what is, in part, a
challenge and with what is, in part, an earnest plea to harness the
power, the ingenuity, and the resources of the business community in
the
East Bay area to further our advantage in the fight against crime and
to end for once and for all the culture of violence in this country,
to use the prosperity of today to build a better future for
tomorrow and to raise a new generation of Americans prepared to live
and work safely and peacefully and constructively in the 21st century.

Let us look at how we provide a comprehensive system
that gives our children the foundation of living upon which we can
build opportunity, upon which we can build skills, and upon which we
can rest safely. In the midst of our nation's prosperity, we have an
opportunity to make sure that the economic expansion extends to the
most economically disadvantaged and vulnerable of our citizens and
that no one is left behind.

Now, some of you business people may say, "That's not
my problem." If we make all our
citizens productive, if we build a work force with the skills
necessary to fill the jobs to maintain your company as a first-rate
company and this nation as a first-rate nation, everybody is going to
be the better for it.

(Applause.)

The unskilled and unemployed are responsible for a
significant portion of the crime in this country. But crime and
prosperity go together. Over 40 percent of the nation's prison
population never completed high school. About 36 percent of our jail
population was unemployed prior to their most recent arrest. And
nearly half of this group had a monthly income of less than $600.
Given the right opportunities, however, the economically disadvantaged
could become part of the work force that fills the jobs and maintains
this country's prosperity. It is an investment that is not penny-wise
or pound-foolish.

What can the business community do? First of all, the
biggest complaint I hear from principals is, I can't get parents to
school for parent-teacher conferences or to find out how their
children are doing or to have their -- see their children in school
plays. Give them time from work to go see their children in action at
school, and it will return --

(Applause.)

Just think of what would happen in the East Bay area
if every business joined with schools and pediatricians across the
East Bay area to make sure that every child that was eligible was
enrolled in the children's health insurance program which benefits
disadvantaged children. It's an investment, again, in our future.
The child who does not receive proper preventative medical care up
front is going to be a burden on you and me and our communities as
taxpayers down the road because we failed to invest in preventative
medical care that could have saved dollars down the road. Here is a
way with a program that now exists that we can make a difference.
Think of what would happen if we could, through employers, through
schools, through pediatricians, make sure that every child is
registered. Let us make sure that children have mentors and tutors
who can make a difference.

I've been to Boston to a program at Roxbury where
there are tutors and mentors who have been trained and who know how to
talk to kids. They come from the corporate sector, and they have made
such a difference. For I asked the young people, what could have been
done to have prevented you from getting into trouble in the first
place. And they say, somebody to talk to, somebody who understands
how hard it is to grow up today, how unsafe and alone you too often
feel, and somebody who knows when to give me a pat on the back and
when to give me a figurative kick in the backside.

Children are more alone and unsupervised, according
to the Carnegie Foundation, than in any time in our history. The
corporate community providing that mentor, that role model, that
person to look up to can make such a difference.

You can, for example, deal with a crisis that I heard
described by both teachers -- and it may not be so in this instance;
but in another city, I asked the young people what we should do about
violence. They said, We think we've got that licked, but what we want
are computers. We don't have any computers in our school. And then,
he said, but what we need is somebody to teach the teachers how to
teach us to use the computers. And one of the teachers said "Amen."
Think of what you could do in designing with an elementary school the
best computer training program imaginable. The teachers and everybody
would appreciate it.

I have just come, as I've indicated, from a program
of the East Oakland Partnership to Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence. It's
a partnership which involves a collaboration of 26 public and
nonprofit agencies and involves Highland Hospital. I asked the
partners who were there today, when I told them that I was coming
here, What could I tell the community about what needs to be done?
What can the business community do to help you? They said, almost
right out of the box, Get involved with the
schools.

And today, you'll hear about Bayer's collaboration
with the City of Berkeley in the school-to-work program, which takes
students in high school and their first year of junior college and
teaches them skills industry is looking for. You'll hear how the
police department has worked with Federal Express and the community
surrounding the airport to ensure that community policing officers
keep in touch with local businesses' safety concerns. You'll hear
from the Oakland A's, a
baseball team that helps refurbish Little League fields so inner city
kids have alternatives to hanging out on the streets and getting into
trouble.

And I just want to tell you a personal experience.
I went to a Miami community where kids could not play on the field
because it was so torn up; they had so much glass and bottles and
junk. They didn't have uniforms. We suddenly had the Reno's Rangers.
And those kids were so excited and so involved. And so I salute you
for that effort. It makes again such a difference.

The A's also have a Read to Succeed program,
encouraging young people who might ordinarily not pick up a book to
read four books and get a free ticket to an A's game. Way to go.

And you heard from your U.S. Attorney, our great Bob
Mueller, about the valuable work he's doing with the Oakland Chamber
of Commerce and the City Manager on Project Exile. You'll see the
message on billboards and buses in the coming weeks: In Oakland,
illegal guns get you five years in prison. But you will hear more
because I asked -- as I asked this morning about what the
Oakland Chamber of Commerce was doing, they suddenly started talking
about a whole new additional
inventory of things that they're talking about. And it was exciting
and wonderful. And I just
congratulate you for the enthusiasm that you're conveying to at least
the community around you.

We are seeing many different kinds of partnerships
form for the purpose of creating safer, more sustainable communities.
Public-private partnerships contribute so much and leave so little
room for criminals to get hold. In Brooklyn, New York, a
pharmaceutical company worked with a local
law enforcement effort, educators, and community organizations to
renovate a 150-year-old building for a K-8 -- through 8 public school.
They installed a video monitoring system for the local subway
stations, shut down open-air drug markets, built a park and a
playground, and encouraged other businesses to move into the area.
And crime has dropped dramatically in the two precincts surrounding
the area.

But there are two problems that businesses must deal
with because they sometimes find them in their own home ground. The
first is domestic violence, which is, with increasing frequency,
spilling over to the workplace. We must do more in terms of employee
assistance programs, in terms of partnership with the medical
community and the criminal justice community to end violence in the
home. For unless we focus on domestic violence in every arena in
which we see it, we will never end violence on our streets, in our
schools, or in this nation. It is an effort that we must renew a
focus upon if we are to make a difference.

And the second is workplace violence itself. Let us
work together with the mental health
community and with others to establish means of identifying early
warning signals and developing means within the workplace to resolve
conflict without knives and guns and fists and violence.

And finally, there is a phenomenon developing in
this country that we must come to grips with if we are ever going to
effectively end the culture of violence in this country. For the next
five years, each year, 400- to 500,000 people will return from jails
and prisons across this country to communities like Oakland, Richmond,
Albany, Berkeley, San Francisco. This is because of
the success of police and prosecutors in sending people to jail for
the crimes they have committed.

We can let them come back without an education. We can let them come
back to the apartment over the
open-air drug market where they got into trouble in the first place.
We can let them come back without
a safety support system. And guess what? They're going to be doing
it all over again, and we're going
to see the crime rate go up again.

Or, with the business community taking the lead, we
can develop reentry programs where business, law enforcement, and
others work together to make sure that, while in prison, that person
utilizes their time through constructive educational programs that
will prepare them for the workplace and make them a constructive
contributor. It will involve focus on alternative housing sites, on
support mechanisms. I have proposed a concept of a reentry court that
will properly control public safety considerations. But unless we
come to grips with this issue, we will never begin to face the
problems on a long range basis.

What can business do? You can do so much. You can
bring a business-like analysis to the problems and help police and
others try to figure out where the crime is, what the impact is, and
how
we can address it. You can take on challenges. How do you take that
housing stock that's 50 or 100
years old and delapidated and decaying and a problem? Use the
contractors in the community to be innovative and bold about how you
clear it away, how you refurbish it, how you build it up, but how you
make the environment of Oakland, of Richmond, of the communities we
care about in this nation an environment in which you would want your
children to
live.

For the last six-and-a-half years, I have had the
chance to visit with people across this nation. I came to Washington
with the devout belief that public service was one of the greatest
callings that anybody could undertake. I came with an abiding faith
and regard for this nation and a deep
love for my country. I've now had an opportunity to see emerging
democracy, ministers of justice coming from small countries just
coming out from dictatorships, other countries having taken the leap a
long time ago, but falling backwards, and now returning to the folds
of democracy. And you
appreciate democracy as never before. You appreciate this nation as
never before.

And these six-and-a-half years have given me an
absolute conviction that, when America
comes together, when it works together in communities, it can solve
its problems and truly
make a difference and that the communities of America, whether it be
Oakland or Miami, can have a
strong future, a safe future, a prosperous future when people come
together with business as the glue
that makes it happen.